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| (From left) The first promotional image and revised version of the event posted on the Naver’Lost Arc’ game community © News1 |
While Nexon’s’Maple Story’ is on the cutting board with a probability item problem, a marketing activity that refers to Maple Story users as’refugees’ in the Naver Game’Lost Arc’ community is causing controversy.
On the 5th, the Naver Game’Lost Arc’ community announced that it will hold a’know-how sharing event for Lost Arc beginners’ until the 28th. The controversy arose when the phrase “Maple refugees, don’t worry, just look at this and give you tips for beginners.”
‘Noise marketing’, in which companies deliberately mock competitors’ issues, is a strategy often used in the advertising and public relations industry, but some netizens expressed discomfort by expressing existing Maple Story users as’refugees’. This is because the dictionary meaning of refugees refers to those who are in trouble due to war or disaster.
Some responded that the expression “refugee” was an interesting approach as a term referring to “users who quit the main game and cannot find the game they deserve” in the game industry, but there were also criticisms that it was wrong that it was officially used in corporate event promotional materials. One netizen pointed out through the comment section of the event that “refugee is not an official expression in such a place.”
An official in the game industry said, “In the case of Lost Arc, it is a game that has a certain distance from the probability-type item issue. This controversy was used in reverse and attracted attention,” but “Recognizing the market share of the Lost Arc game, we implemented a strategy that crossed the line.” said.
Recognizing the problem, Naver Games immediately corrected the expression’Maple refugee’ in the event photo to’New Adventurer’. Naver Game said, “I tried to bring out the fun by using the tone of the game users, but I did not fully recognize the negative effects,” and said, “We apologize for causing concern for Nexon and Smilegate.”
Smilegate said, “The Naver Game Lost Arc section is a page independently operated by Naver, and the event that is a problem was also held without any consultation with Smilegate and Smilegate RPG.” We requested, and we will try to prevent similar problems from occurring through prior consultation and various methods in the future.”
However, it is analyzed that this noise marketing worked as a good thing for Lost Arc. According to the PC room game research service’Gametrix’, Lost Arc ranked 9th in the ranking with 1.64% of market share as of February 25, but jumped to the 6th place (3.33% share) on that day thanks to the Maple Story controversy. .
Meanwhile, Nexon Maple Story announced through a game update announcement on the 18th of last month that “we will modify the additional options given to items to be given with the same probability.” Until now, it was written in the item description column as’random’, but the option was given with high probability for unnecessary performance and low probability for important performance.
As a result, MapleStory users said that the game company’s user deception has crossed the line, and proceeds with’Truck Siwi’, which sends protest trucks to Nexon headquarters, and’Limit 0 won Challenge’, which sets the limit of in-game cash recharge to 0 won. I rebelled fiercely.
As the controversy continued, Nexon decided to disclose information on all paid probability items in its game on this day. Nexon CEO Lee Jeong-heon said, “I will no longer be insensitive to the user’s voice,” and “No matter how long it takes, the grand principle of’transparent information disclosure for users’ for each game is melted through various preparations and arrangements. I will continue to progress,” he emphasized.